Hallucination Suggestions

KrovakonKrovakon Join Date: 2012-05-20 Member: 152332Members
<div class="IPBDescription">^</div>Hallucination: As it stands, it's not very reliable, and a few bullets will kill the 'Ghost' alien often making it a very weak meatshield. Sure there are times when it works. But how often does it?

Suggestion #1: give all Hallucinations 'Attack' animations (Default primary attack, Bite, Slash, Spike?, gore, spit). They will deal no damage mind you, But if you suddenly see three Oni rush into a room and start 'Attacking' the power node, more often than not Marines will beacon, and they will find out it was only a hallucination and have to rush back to whatever they were doing.
What if you had 2 fake Oni and 1 real one? They might simply think it's three hallucinations only to find out that one is real and they're in serious trouble.

Of course you'd need the "Structure under attack" alert to play for the marine commander when the hallucinations attack, but they could check the structures HP when clicking on it to see if it's taking damage. And even if they realize it's fake, you just made the marine commander take precious time from assisting his marines to check on something that is pretty much a ghost.

This will make them much more useful, without any drastic changes being made.

PS: I was considering mentioning that when Hallucinations attack, they deal 'Fake' damage that only the commander would see, But then that could get way too confusing for Marine Commanders, and possibly make the Ability overpowered. So meh.

Suggestion #2: When a hallucination is created, the Alien commander can 'Jump' into it and control it using the skills it'd normally have, However the skills would just be for show and obviously not deal any damage. This would add to the illusion that the alien is actually real since a real player would actually be controlling it.

Mind you it'd have to have any easy 'Log off' button for the commander to immediately return to commander mode. (E would seem to work fine?)

So community. Thoughts? Would any of these be horrible ideas? Are some of these ideas already planned just not coded in yet? Would they benefit NS2 in a positive way?

Comments

  • internetexplorerinternetexplorer Join Date: 2011-10-13 Member: 127255Members
    Why is hallucination even in the game to begin with? What lower level problem with the design does it solve? Is it purely for novelty?
  • botchiballbotchiball Join Date: 2003-04-24 Member: 15810Members, Constellation
    You've got some interesting ideas, but I lean more towards internetexplorer's reaction. At current, it seems to be pure fluff.

    The second suggestion sounds cool, but think how much time you're wasting as a Khamm to give the Comm a minor distraction. Personally I'd rather see a "fire and forget" mentality applied to this ability like other abilities (umbra, disorient, cloak). Click on the structure, click on the hallucination button, click on the map, area effect where a bunch of hallucinations would appear and send false attack info back to Comm and other Marines; lasts for a duration or until a marine shoots them all.
    Even that could be a waste of time thought -> 3 clicks and some manuevering around the map just to get the Comm to look at an area on screen? It should set of every "alarm" that a normal attack would, and it should be very hard to distinguish between a normal attack - until they start being shot at.
  • RuntehRunteh Join Date: 2010-06-26 Member: 72163Members, Reinforced - Shadow
    I think the drifter should take on more of these abilities. I find that people under use it on servers, but sending scouts out to each hive location initially is invaluable, and you get really early warnings of attacks.

    Give the drifter more range, cost a little more energy - but make it more proactive. With the ability to cast UMBRA, ENZYME, INK CLOUD and other abilities, and take it away from the structures.

    I think it would make for a better game, because it will mean you can activate these abilities on the front line as well as in defence, and require the comm to be more pro-active. You also don't encounter a manic ability spam when at the hive, or rather, these abilities can be taken down with more ease by targeting the drifters.

    Phastasm does work, but I still find it a little cheap shooting AI lifeforms. I'd rather have something else.

    Hallucination is an odd one as well, because not only do you have to deal with a load of cloaked structures, but also you have to deal with a wobbly impaired screen.

    I like the idea of Shade, but in practice it is a difficult one to get right I think.
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